Kohl

I just read Meg Rosoff’s Just In Case – really winning, by the way, not deserving of being stuck in the ghetto of ‘young adult’ – and anyway, something caught my eye:

The voice belonged to a girl of perhaps nineteen who peered at him through a heavy, clipped pink fringe. Her eyes were thickly rimmed with kohl, her mouth neatly outlined in a vivid shade of orange that clashed perfectly with her hair.

Right. This is from Claire Messud’s The Emperor’s Children:

“Darlings! Welcome! And you must be Danielle?” Sleek and small, her wide eyes rendered enormous by kohl, Lucy Leverett, in spite of her resemblance to a baby seal, rasped impressively.

Kohl! Both books were published last year. Is there a store, or something, where the year’s prospective glimmering literary words hang on racks? Wouldn’t it be great if there were word consultants who issued palette forecast cards the way the color consultants do? Writers could pay with cigarette butts.